Adventures in Fantasyland
by Llandaryn
Summary: Fantasyland. A place of magic, war, lost heirs and dark lords. What happens when two young Tourists are thrust into the Fantasy Tour against their will? Co-written by Calanteli, LuckyShadows and Llandaryn.
1. The Trouble with Tourists

_The Management strongly recommends you read A Tough Guide To Fantasy Land, by Diana Wynne Jones_,_ upon whose wonderful work this fanfic is based._

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* * *

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Adventures in Fantasyland

Presented by The Management

- Calanteli, LuckyShadows & Llandaryn -

o - o ^ o - o

_1. The Trouble with Tourists_

Rolling onto her back, she sighed with delight. Dropping her dog-eared copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ onto the blanket, she raised her arms above her head and stretched like a cat. She let the soft sounds of the park waft over her like a gentle caress: children squealing delighted, dogs barking and a couple whispering close-by. Smiling, she immersed herself in the moment. Exams were over, the sun was shining and she had two weeks until she started her summer job. In short, life was perfect.

The perfectness of the moment, however, was suddenly overshadowed by…well, a shadow. She grimaced and slowly opened her eyes to confront whoever was blocking the source of her precious vitamin D. Sunlight was a rare commodity in England and had to be snatched during rare intervals when the obnoxious British weather was not interfering. What she saw made her blink. Twice. Standing over her was what could only be described as…a gnome. Though of course gnomes did not exist so it was either a very small man or a young boy. In any case, he was dressed in wizard's robes and carried an armful of faux-parchments bearing gothic lettering.

"Fantasy tours?" he squeaked hopefully, thrusting one such parchment under her nose.

"Umm…what?"

"Fantasy Tours!" he piped excitedly, flourishing the flyer like a magic wand. "Fully certified sight-seeing adventure excursions complete with quests, adventure and maybe even romance! In addition you will also discover your true destiny and save the world from…"

"…the shadowy grasp of the Dark Lord, yes, I know," she finished in a bored voice. She had ploughed through her fair share of fantasy novels in boarding school. But after reading the same plot line over and over again with the same clichéd characters, she had long ago moved on to more salient novels.

"Oh my, you seem more prepared than most! Most heroes don't realise that the Dark Lord is the chief antagonist until about half-way through their _second_ tour!"

She let that one pass. "What is this thing anyway?" she asked, grabbing the offending flyer that was still being brandished in her face and glancing at it dubiously. "Some sort of new ride at the theme park?"

"Oh, well, yes, there is riding involved, though sometimes you will be forced to walk or maybe even sail! Other times you will even travel by teleportation or maybe even on a magic carpet, depending on which tour you choose."

"I see…" The gnome-wizard person had either blatantly misunderstood or he was one of those overenthusiastic promoters who had managed to brainwash himself with his own marketing.

"So shall I sign you up? We have a tour leaving now! The Starting Point is just around the corner." he chirped, quill and parchment at the ready.

"Umm, I don't know… I mean… I'm sure some people would find it fun, but…"

"Oh, it's lots of fun!"

"…but I'm not sure it's for me." She was not even sure why this guy was trying to sell this…this 'tour' to her. She knew she looked young for her age, but surely she could not be mistaken for a ten-year old! "Plus I'm supposed to meet my friends and…" Did his lips just quiver? And was that a _tear_ rolling down his cheek? _Oh my god, is he trying to emotionally blackmail me?_ Was this seriously how low the industry was willing to stoop to meet sales quotas?

"You get a complimentary mug and a certificate for completing tour…" the little man added whimsically.

"Okay fine!" she snapped a bit more harshly than necessary. She had an hour to waste until she was supposed to meet everyone anyway, and she had finished her book, so this was as good way to spend the time as any. At least so she thought… This better not end up being one of those things where they made you pay extortionate fees and then left you bored out of your mind.

The wizard's eyes brightened instantly. He squealed with delight and clapped his hands excitedly. "I knew you would come! Better hurry, you need to get your outfit and supplies, oh and sign the contract of course!" he blabbered as he began tugging at the leg of her jeans. She gathered up her blanket and book and stuffing them in her bag, followed the annoying man. She definitely had a word or two to say about him to the management.

o ~ o ^ o ~ o

She was literally dragged inside by Gumble, the gnome (for he had proclaimed that he was indeed a gnome and had been forced to take this job after he accidentally blew up half of his gnomish town back in Fantasyland for the fifth time and needed the money in order to pay off the damages and costs of repair the Gnomish Council had dumped on his head). She was not sure she believed him. After all, there was no such thing as 'Fantasyland' - it existed only in authors' imaginations and so the only conclusion left to draw was that this tour promoter was slightly eccentric, with an overactive imagination.

Looking around, she found that she had been manhandled into one of those quintessentially English shops for which the best adjective was 'dingy'. It was also highly lacking in taste. The floorboards were uneven, the ceiling sloped at an angle and the only sources of light was coming from several huge, dripping candles that looked like they had been stolen off of the set of _Van Helsing_. Well, at least they were trying to create a scenic atmosphere with what small budget they had. She wondered where the ride, or tour, or whatever this was, was located. _Maybe you had to walk through a magic wardrobe to get to it,_ she thought dryly.

"I've got another one!" hollered Gumble, racing up to a sales counter that was being manned by a decidedly ugly receptionist who looked even more decidedly bored out of her mind. At least, she guessed that it was a she…it was hard to tell with the long, greasy green hair and the protruding incisors. Though if the hideous amounts of make-up were anything to go by, then the gender of…the _thing_ was female. At any rate, it was definitely not human. Apparently the management had decreed that all employees must dress up as some sort of fantasy creature and had gone to great lengths to achieve a convincing effect. For some reason, instead of a more appealing elf or plain human, they had chosen to make the receptionist a half-troll or half-orc…she could not decide which it was supposed to be.

The receptionist in question, Maarg (for that was scrawled on the nametag) ignored the gnome as he scuffled around behind her and zoomed out the door a second later with a precarious load of parchment. She concentrated instead on pouring hot wax on the bottom of a piece of faux-parchment. Pressing an elaborately engraved seal onto it, she spat at a slightly confused-looking customer, "Wait for it to dry. Next!"

Realising that she was the next in line, she stepped up to the counter. Maarg looked her up and down with a sceptical expression. Inspecting her nails, she reached under the counter and dumped a staggeringly huge pile of yet more parchment on the greasy wood. "Fill out this paperwork." She then pulled out a bright radioactive green colour polish and muttered something about 'characters lately' before shouting "Next!"

She gaped at the mound. What on earth was this? It couldn't possibly be… yes, it was The Contract. That was clearly etched in blood-red lettering, or at least as clearly as gothic typeface written with an unsteady quill and splattered with ink blobs could be etched. Pulling it towards her, she opened it to the first page.

_Dear prospective tourist!_

_The Management is proud to welcome you on your upcoming tour to Fantasyland! Be assured that we have done our best to make the trip as smooth and seamless as possible, but due to the slightly volatile nature of your destination (whichever you will pick [See pages 3 to 5 on 'Tour Choices']), we must inform you that certain unarranged occurrences may occur, and for these we take no liability [See pages 6 to 173 on 'Limitations and Liability']._

_Once you have read through and signed this Contract, you will be asked by the receptionist to fill out The Obligatory Questionnaire, following which you will be assigned your clothing and a bag of gold. After this, the tour will begin. (Please note that the following symptoms may manifest for a short time upon arrival to Fantasyland: slight nausea, headache, disorientation, loss of memory, confusion, bruising, urge to vomit, dryness of throat, and dust inhalation. The Management takes no liability for any of these symptoms.)_

_We thank you for your interest in Fantasy Tours, and hope you will enjoy your trip!_

_Compliments,_

_The Management_

She stared at the rest of The Contract sourly. There was no way she could be expected to spend the rest of her life reading this ridiculous document. So, doing what any 21st century consumer would do, she flipped to the last page and signed her name and the date.

As soon as she had done so, the tome was snatched from under her nose by a set of radioactive green nails… actually 'claws' was the more appropriate word. Maarg lobbed the stack easily over her shoulder and it landed with much sliding and fluttering somewhere behind her.

"The Obligatory Questionnaire," the receptionist announced, without much preamble, grabbing a quill that looked like it had seen better days. "Name."

"Arianna Hudson."

"Name on Tour."

"Erm… Can't it be the…"

"No, absolutely not. Use that grey matter of yours and come up with a name by which you will be known on the Tour. And do try to make it _interesting_. Most people who come in here have no imagination."

She thought for a bit, and then said, "Ari." Short, simple, easy to remember. And definitely better than 'Arianna'. What had possessed her parents to shackle her with such a prissy name, she had no clue. Plus she was not going to come up with some random fantasyesque name just for one hour.

Maarg looked at her and blinked her overdone eyes. "'Ari.' Are you serious? What kind of a name is that for a tour?"

"Hey, that's my name. Can we get this over with?" The customer service in this place was atrocious! She was seriously annoyed with herself for agreeing to this whole…_sham_, and for that Gumble guy for dragging her into it. She was sure there was some law somewhere stating that coercive commercial practices were against the law. In any case, she was definitely going to fill out a Complaints Form, provided that they even _had_ one in this place…

Maarg shrugged nonchalantly and turned back to the questionnaire. "Race."

_You had to be joking…_ "Human, obviously."

"Age."

"Twenty."

"Class."

"What?"

"Class… Profession… You have a choice of: 'Mercenary', 'Rogue, 'Witch', 'Wizard', 'Warrior', 'Ranger', 'Virgin', or 'Long-Lost Heir'."

"Erm… Ranger, I guess…"

"Level."

"Beginner?" She had tried her hand at archery a few years back at the Medieval Fair in Canterbury, but that was about it. Plus, it was not likely that she was actually going to be expected to _kill_ anything on this ridiculous tour.

"Tour Choice."

"What are the choices?"

"Default, Celtic, Historic or Modern."

"Default, I guess…"

"Sign." She was about to say Sagittarius when she realised that Maarg had thrust the parchment onto the counter and was waiting for her to sign her name. She did so and the receptionist took out the steaming vat of red wax and poured a liberal dose at the bottom. Whacking the seal into it, she said, "Wardrobe is thataway," jerking her thumb in the direction of a badly lit and hazardous looking corridor.

Ari walked towards it hesitantly. Reaching a crudely made sign with sparkly blue lettering declaring _'Roabe Warde'_, she pushed open the door and stepped inside. She was greeted by a tiny green creature with huge lavender eyes. It blinked at her excitedly.

"Um, what are you supposed to be?" Ari asked. She wondered briefly whether the creature was some sort of CGI illusion, for surely no human could be _that_ small!

"I'm an elf, of course!" it replied with a slight Irish accent.

"You look more like a leprechaun. But without the orange hair. And aren't elves meant to be the fairest of all beings? The 'Elder' race?"

The creature glared at Ari like it was about to kill her.

"I am _not_ a leprechaun! I'm an _original_ elf! Straight from ye olde Celtic and Norse tales. But thanks t' that horrid _Tolkien_, an' his grand, noble, arrogant elves, who everyone seems to love an' know about, no one cares about my type anymore!" A small tear slid down its cheek. "And so I am now forced to earn a living working _here_… Forced out of business by a _Brit!_ But enough about that. Welcome to the Roabe Warde!" She spread her tiny arms in what was apparently a majestic way to reveal rows and rows of costume racks.

"You mean _wardrobe_…"

"Like I said, the Roabe Warde. So," the elf/leprechaun-in-denial said, sizing her up. "A little pixie tells me that yer t' be a ranger. Hmm." She skipped towards a rack and pulled out two sets of clothes, narrowly managing to avoid tipping the whole thing over and burying herself under all the fabric. She held up the choices for inspection. One was a horrible bright pink creation that looked suspiciously a lot like one of those neon-coloured jogging suits worn by Hollywood babes, while the other was a plain brown and green ensemble.

"Would ye like the damsel-in-distress set?" the elf asked hopefully, hefting the pink monstrosity and giving her an encouraging grin. Ari resisted the urge to throw up. "Or the plainboringonet hatfiftyotherpe oplehave?"

"The plain one. _Please."_

The elf sighed and handed the clothes over. "This costume has been sitting here fer three years now. I'm tempted t' take it home meself." She stroked it lovingly before putting it back on the rack.

"Now for the shoes…" The elf rubbed her chin while intently examining Ari's worn Converse. Then her eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "I know!" The next second she was gone, zipping among the shelves and racks. A heartbeat later, she was back with a tatty box. "These will be _perfect_ for you!" she purred, holding out a pair of… canary-yellow '70s platform boots?

"Erm… I really don't think that's my style. Plus I'm not even sure I could _walk_ in those…"

The elf looked dejected and Ari wondered whether she would burst into tears again. But in the next instant her smile was back and she had disappeared among the racks again to return with a pair lace-up, thigh-high, faded crimson-coloured boots. Ari looked at them dubiously. But they were a far cry better than the previous choice, so she took them.

"Go on! Try them on!" twittered the elf, literally bouncing on the spot with excitement.

"Is there a changing room somewhere…?"

"A what?"

"Never mind…" Glancing around, Ari spotted a dim corner partially obscured by a mound of clothing and moved towards it. She changed with some difficult. The hose was a bit too tight for her taste and even after lacing up the mud-coloured shirt, a good portion of her cleavage was still exposed. Sighing, she quickly donned the muted-green jerkin and threw the forest-green cloak over her shoulders. Clinching on the belt with a rusty buckle, she spent the next ten minutes lacing up the obnoxious boots. Once done, she turned around, and found that the elf had wheeled out a floor-length mirror. Taking in her reflection, she was pleased to realise that she looked half-decent.

"Beautiful!" cried the elf, clapping her small hands together. Her eyes were once again rimmed with tears. Recovering quickly, however, she picked up a small bag and shoved it at Ari. "This is your starting pack. In it ye have a small pouch of gold and yer Tour Book, containing all ye ever need t' know 'bout Fantasyland. Once ye arrive, ye can purchase all yer supplies."

"That's fine, I don't think I'll be wanting any souvenirs," mumbled Ari as she was dragged by the wrist to a… no… A wardrobe? _Seriously?_ C.S Lewis must be turning in his grave right about now…

"Oh, and before I forget, ye need t' leave all yer non-Tour stuff here. That includes tela-phoneys, mobile phoneys, wristwatches, pocket-watches, music players, comp-youters, money, make-up, dogs, cats…"

"Okay, I get the point," Ari bit out irately, unfastening her watch and shoving it into her backpack. "You better not lose that!"

"Happy touring!" waved the elf, shutting the wardrobe door and leaving Ari in completely darkness. She could hear the eccentric creature shuffling about, but before she could contemplate what on earth she could be doing, the ground literally dropped out from under her feet and she was falling…falling…falling… In a strange parallel to Alice tumbling down the rabbit-hole. _Will the clichés never end?_ she thought just before she hit the ground with a painful thud and breathed in a mouthful of dust. She became aware that she ached all over, her head was spinning and she fought the urge to throw-up with mixed success.

Her last deliberation before passing out was that she was _definitely_ going to sue the Management once she got out of this mess...

o - o ^ o - o

Slowly, the world phased into view, accompanied by a sort of rocking motion. The darkness began to fade, light began to penetrate vision, and the nausea began to pass. When it did, and when he was sure he wasn't in danger of collapsing again into a gelatinous heap, Daniel Carver pushed himself to his feet. He blinked several times, wondering why his vision was blurry. Then he remembered. He took his glasses out of his pocket, cleaned them with the bottom of his shirt (the front of which said "AC 0", and the back of which said "My THAC0 is 1") and placed them squarely on his nose. The world around him sprang to life, crystal clear and rather... dusty. The town, a hundred yards down what could barely be called a road, had an Old Western look about it. The biggest building, an inn or a tavern, barely avoided being a saloon, and here and there a stray cactus was poking its prickled head as if trying to succinctly grab attention. A large sign was sunk into the ground on a wooden post; he squinted at it, read the single word, and pondered what it might mean. 'HERE', it said. Perhaps it was a shortened name... like Hereford (which he had once heard an American pronounce as 'here ford' - explaining to the chap that it was actually said 'herrafurd, if you were from somewhere north of Hereford, or 'herafud' if you were from somewhere south of Hereford, had taken quite some time).

His attention was quickly drawn away from the town. Fifty paces away from the large sign, just far enough outside the town to obviously not be a part of it, were four long tables, behind each of which sat a suited, bespectacled man. _Ah_, thought Daniel. _The Management._ Nobody really knew who The Management were. Most people knew them as ubiquitous, neutral entities (or perhaps simply **a** ubiquitous, neutral entity that could split itself into many forms) who made The Rules and set various parameters on the various tours. And the tours _were_ varied, and quite many. Only last year, Aunt Bertha had given Daniel a Call of Duty Tour as a birthday gift. He'd had to explain, quite slowly so as not to confuse her, that just because he was a teenage male (he refused to think of himself as a 'boy') did not mean he was interested in guns, the army, or shooting people. He had no desire to give orders, take orders, dismantle bombs, jump from jeeps, escape from submarines, storm castles, rescue prisoners of war, or shoot down enemy airplanes. But his mother had made him do the bloody Tour anyway, just to please Aunt Bertha. The sole saving grace was that Aunt Bertha was a little behind in the times. She'd bought him the Call of Duty 2 Tour, which involved running around with heavy guns shooting Nazis. This was inherently preferable to one of the newer Call of Duty Tours, which he had heard on good authority contained a lot of running with heavy guns shooting zombie terrorists _in sixty degree heat and with equipment that failed when periodically exposed to extremes of temperatures, sand, or zombie terrorists._ He'd told Aunt Bertha, quite firmly, that he wasn't interested in anything like that. He liked reading Lord of the Rings. He liked playing Diablo and Baldur's Gate. He liked sitting at a table with a group of his nerdy friends rolling dice for hours on end for some purpose other than gambling (which Aunt Bertha was quite fond of). Had he known that this year she would buy him the Fantasy Tour, he wouldn't have mentioned anything. Or maybe he would have told her that he liked Barbie dolls. Surely the Barbie Tour - every twelve year old girl's dream, every sane parent's worst nightmare - was safer than the Fantasy Tour.

A piece of paper was stuck to each table with cellotape, and each one flapped gently in the barely-existent breeze, as if inviting him to read them. And so he did. '_Booke Youre Firste Toure Here'_ said the sign on the first table, the one with the longest queue in front of it. The people standing in this queue were like him. Teenagers, mostly, still wearing their regular clothes, looking around with gaping, slack-jawed expressions. Beside table number two, however, which bore a sign reading '_Renewe Youre Toure Subscription Here'_, the crowd was a little different. The people in that queue were dressed in a variety of clothes, from colourful silks to leather jerkins, from _Very Little_ to full plate armour. These people looked weary; their faces were lined with worry-creases, their clothes often mud-stained. This queue was smaller, around half the size of the first. And then there was the third table, bearing a sign that said '_Register Fore Youre Final Toure Here'_. This queue had only three people in it. Three people who were practically slumped where they stood, their clothes and armour covered not only in mud but in a rainbow of blood of all different shades of dryness. The fourth table was stranger still. '_Now Hireing Extras and Random Encounters'_ said the sign, and in front of the table were three elves, a pair of goblins, what looked _suspiciously_ like a mind-flayer, a small group of gargoyles and a unicorn.

There was a _pop_ by his feet, and slowly, Daniel looked down. Right beside his shoe was a small cactus. Three pink flowers adorned its central green stem, and when it... saw?... him looking, it waved one of its arms at him. It was all he could do to not jump back and yell in fright.

"You! Stop right there!" said a man who appeared to have come out of thin air. From his pocket, the man took a small long object which looked rather like a Wii controller. "Put your arms in the air." Daniel immediately threw his arms up, his hands wide open to show he held no weapon. "Not you," said the man, lowering the controller and aiming at the cactus. He pulled the trigger, and the cactus let out a scream as it was enveloped by a mysterious purple light. Then it was gone, leaving not even a hole in the ground where it had been.

"What... er... was that?" asked Daniel, slowly lowering his arm.

"That was a runaway cactus," the man replied. "We've got a leak from the Western Tour. Damned things are popping up all over the place. Have you seen any more cacti around here?"

"Oh, no. Sorry," he said, trying not to let his eyes slide to the stray cacti within the town. The man sighed, holstered his weapon-cum-game-controller, and turned to look at the desks. The men behind them paid him no attention, and he seemed to ignore them too, studying the people in the queues instead. "What did you... um... do to the cactus?"

"I just sent it back to the Western Tour. I doubt it will be foolish enough to try running away again," said the man with a satisfied nod.

"Are you one of The Management?"

"I'm afraid that's classified information."

"Really?"

"No, not really. But I just finished a shift over on the Spy Tour, and that sort of thing sticks with you. Well," he looked around, apparently satisfied no more cacti were lurking near. "You have yourself a good Tour." Then he disappeared right into thin air. With nothing better to do, Daniel joined the queue at the first table. It was one of those nervous, doctors surgery queues, the sort where you knew the person next to you was suffering from _something_, but you didn't want to ask in case it sparked a long and arduous conversation about illnesses. And just as he had no desire to speak to sick people, he likewise had no desire to speak to the obviously crazy folks who were here _by their own choice._ Some of them were even bouncing in anticipation, for gods sake! Didn't they know how dangerous Tours could be? He almost _died_ on the Call of Duty Tour last year!

Slowly, the queue began to move forward, and he was struck by something odd. Though the sun was high overhead, and heat-waves were rising from the hard baked ground, he didn't feel hot at all. In fact, the temperature was a pleasant eighteen degrees, just as it had been in Marlborough before he'd left. Back home, local councils were on the verge of implementing a hose-pipe ban.

He must have queued for almost an hour, and when he finally reached the front of the queue, he was greeted by a bald, suit-wearing man, who said "Welcome to Fantasyland, please complete Form HU-U-B, ensuring you have signed and dated the back of the Form at Section 1C. Failure to do so will invalidate your Form and prevent your progression onto the Tour." Then a piece of paper was pushed across the desk at him. He bent down to read the first question.

_'Name?'_ Well, that was easy enough. He picked up the pen, which had probably been pinched from a bank because it was set in a black stand, and the end of it was fastened to the desk by a long silver chain, and wrote _'Daniel Carver'_. Then he moved on to the next question. _'Fantasyland Name?'_

"It's how you want to be known in Fantasyland," the man said patiently before Daniel could even open his mouth to ask. Obviously, it was a common question.

"Are you one of The Management?" he asked.

"That depends. Do you have a complaint?"

"Would it make a difference?"

"If you don't have a complaint, then yes, I'm one of The Management. If you do have a complaint, then I'm simply a Tour Operator subcontracted by The Management to ensure all of your Tour needs are fulfilled, and would ask that all complaints are submitted in writing to The Management."

"Have you ever done the Fantasy Tour yourself?" he asked, hoping to glean some valuable tips from the man.

"Good heavens, no. I'm an administrator. My job is to inflict as much fun on other people as humanly possible whilst avoiding having any myself."

"And you like doing this?"

"Just fill in the Form, kid, it's a long queue."

He turned his attention back to the form, and realised he hadn't moved past _Fantasyland Name?_ yet, so he wrote _'Daniel The Strange'_. He would probably never be Daniel The Bold or Daniel The Wise, and _definitely_ never Daniel The Rich, but Strange was something he could do, so he satisfied himself with that and looked at the next question. _Race?_ Resisting the near-overwhelming urge to write _'No thanks, I have asthma'_, he instead wrote _'Human'_. It was, after all, what he had most experience being, unless you ascribed to his mother's theory that he was a sunlight-hating hermit monster who lived in a squalor of empty beer cans, unclean underwear, decomposing pizza boxes and old computer parts. Personally, he didn't.

_Age?_ He decided on the truth, and scribbled _'18'_. It was a good age. Old enough to drink and vote, yet young enough to still begin an apprenticeship if he chose. Nobody expected things of an eighteen year old person, other than drinking, gaming and listening to heavy metal. He was dreading the end of his teens, when he would have to deal with Responsibility, and probably even find one of those dreaded Jobs.

_Class?_ said the next question, and he didn't think '_absolutely none whatsoever_' would suffice as an answer. But this time he needn't have worried; creative thinking was not required. The form was printed with various check-boxes, with words like _Caravan Guard, Bandit, Wizard, Witch, Female Mercenary, Virgin,_ and _Long Lost Heir_ beside them. Quickly, he ticked the _Wizard_ box. He had absolutely no desire to own a sword, wield a sword, use a sword, or die by the sword. Wizards, at least in the fantasy campaigns he played with his friends, were relatively safe from swords, by virtue of having their own group of warriors between them and the enemy swords.

_Level?_ the next question asked, and again it had check-boxes, with words like _Novice, Apprentice, Adept, Master_ and _Grandmaster_ beside them. He ticked the _Novice_ box, because if somebody in Fantasyland thought him an Adept and expected him to use real magic, he was screwed. Nobody wanted Novices to perform magic, or do much of anything except mope around and get under the feet, which his mother had assured him many times, he was already a _Grandmaster_ at doing. Unfortunately, there seemed no option to be a _Grandmaster of Novice_, so he'd have to settle with being a plain old _Novice._

Now he was at the end of the form, which he signed and dated before handing back to the administrator. The man didn't even look at it.

"Welcome to Fantasyland, Daniel The Strange. Your journey begins Here. Here is your starting gold," a leather pouch was dropped onto the table, and it jingled musically, "and your wizard robes." A pile of purple material with silver stars on it followed, and a pair of leather boots landed upon them. "Please hand over your mobile phone, wrist watch, other valuables or modern technology, and then take your robes and change in the booth." The man waved his hand behind him, and for the first time Daniel noticed a small rectangular structure about the same size as a porta-toilet that one might find at Glastonbury, and he was sure it hadn't been there a moment ago.

"How did you know what I was going to be without even looking at my form?" he asked as his mind tried to catch up to his mouth.

"I knew what you would be from the moment you arrived."

"Then why did you make me fill out the form?"

"So that you couldn't complain you'd had no choice about it. Your mobile phone, wrist watch, and any other valuables or modern technology, _please_," said the man, patiently holding out his hand.

"Why do you need my things?" he asked as he removed his digital watch and fished around in his pocket for the brick-like Nokia.

"Because the denizens of Fantasyland have never seen anything like this before. _Terrible Things_ could happen if modern technology enters Fantasyland... if it even works at all. Do you have a gun on you?"

"Of course I don't have a gun on me! Why would I carry a gun?"

"Some people do," the man shrugged.

"But what do I do if I need to tell the time within Fantasyland?"

"You may use one of the traditional methods; Sundials are popular these days, as are Egg Timers. Then of course there's the Position Of The Sun In The Sky method, or you could always consult a Magic User or Priest. Priests are especially big on doing rituals at the right times. Now, please proceed to the booth and put on your new robes. Your items will be returned to you upon completion of your Tour. Once properly dressed, you will proceed to the nearby town and purchase your weapon, travelling supplies, horse, and choose a caravan to be assigned to."

"Wait a moment, if you're supplying me with my robe, why can't you give me a weapon and supplies too?"

"We believe that the experience of haggling and bartering for goods builds character and gives a new Tourist the experience they will require later in their tour," said the administrator, and Daniel was left with the strong impression that the man was either an automaton, or a soulless minion of orthodoxy. Possibly both. "One last thing. Here is your Tour book; in it you will find facts and information vital to your Tour in Fantasyland." A small book was deposited onto the pile of robes; the words, in elegant gold hand-script, on its scarlet-red cover said _'A Tough Guide To Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones (Level 10 Bard, Level 8 Sage, Level 3 Female Mercenary)'_. Below the title and author name, in small black typeface, was an addendum. '**Heavily Edited By The Management For Your Benefit.'**

"Right. Well, thank you," he said, grabbing his new clothes, book and gold and making his way towards the booth. The door opened at his approach and he stepped inside fearing he'd have to dress with his elbows by his side, but instead what he found was a room with almost palatial proportions. There was a long wooden bench on which he could sit and a locker for him to store his old clothes. The room was otherwise quite bare, with no windows and no visible source of lighting.

He stripped down to his underwear then spent half an hour trying to wrestle the robes over his head. They were huge, voluminous things with wide sleeves and a high collar, and had been lined with a layer of purple material to prevent them become translucent if they became wet. How on Earth did women manage to wear dresses like this? No wonder they always got ready in groups of three or more, if it took that many people to get one individual into their clothes.

By the time he'd managed to get the robes over his head, a full-length mirror had obligingly appeared along one wall. He examined his own reflection, and wasn't all that impressed with what he saw. He'd always been skinny, but now, even his skinny body was lost amongst the star-spangled robe, so that he didn't so much look like a wizard novice as he did a disembodied head floating above a purple and silver tent. To his even greater dismay, he found a wide-brimmed, pointed purple hat on the floor by his feet. It must have fallen out of his robes whilst he was wrestling with them. He put it on his head, then looked again at the mirror. Now the disembodied head was wearing a purple traffic cone. It wasn't an attractive look, even for him.

He turned at last to the shoes waiting patiently on the bench. Leather they might be, but they had a pointed toe that curled slightly upwards, and were about three sizes too long for his feet. He was, he suspected, going to spend most of his 'adventure' walking around as if he was constipated. Suddenly, that Call of Duty Tour was looking quite attractive.


	2. You Are Here

_During the course of this parody, The Management also spoofs other works of fiction. We make no apology for this blatant use of satire. In fact, we wield it with glee._

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* * *

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Adventures in Fantasyland

Presented by The Management

- Calanteli, LuckyShadows & Llandaryn -

o - o ^ o - o

_2. You Are Here_

Fully robed and feeling like a complete berk, Daniel affected a casual stroll as he approached the town. This had the unfortunate effect of making him look like a tall, tent-covered wading bird, complete with stiff legs and bobbing head. His shoes threatened to trip him at every step, so he was forced to kick his legs high in front of him to clear the ground.

As if by magic, people appeared on the streets the instant he passed the large 'HERE' sign. Some hawked their wares from carts, others tried to scurry furtively in the shadows but were foiled because the sun was directly overhead, leaving no shadows to scurry in. Many of the people were first-time Tourers, like him. He could tell, because they wandered around with their heads buried inside their guide books, barely looking where they were going except when the stopped to gawp at something outlandishly simple, such as horses tethered to a rail outside the inn-cum-saloon and small dishevelled beggars who had managed to cultivate a plethora of interesting smells.

The first thing to do, he decided, was find out where he was. Then he could find out where he needed to go to finish the Tour, hopefully bypassing all the messy, bloody middle bits which were bound to be hard work and painful. He wasn't going to fool himself into believing he was a hero. He wasn't, which was why any character he created was small, sly, and with just enough wits to know when to run and save his skin.

There would be a Helpful Local somewhere, to guide him and offer him pearls of wisdom (or, more likely in this case, pearl-coloured iridescent small glass marbles of wisdom). He knew this from his own experience of being The Management in his own games. Always, in those cases, he was the DM. He didn't hold with all this newfangled GM nonsense, because DM had connotations, it conjured images of true fantasy roleplaying (miles upon miles of dark, dangerous dungeons) whereas GM was more ambiguous, almost the politically correct term dreamt up by somebody who thought implying that all roleplaying games had dungeons was a negative thing.

It was probably the fault of New Labour. Everything had become about political correctness since they'd started running the country again. His dad had complained about it time and time again. No company worth its weight in salt had a payroll department anymore. Instead, they had 'human resources', which put in Daniel's mind the image of employees standing in neat, pliable rows, being harvested by teams of chainsaw wielding executives. No longer did kitchens have cooks. They had been replaced by 'catering and hospitality operatives'. Fitness instructors were now 'personal health and wellbeing advisors' And woe betide anyone who got his dad started on what lollypop ladies were called these days.

Finding the Helpful Local was proving to be something of a challenge. There were plenty of people around, but they all refused to make eye contact with him. He tried marching firmly up to one man, but the fellow simply turned and hurried the other way. He waved to one woman who retreated to her house and slammed the door. It was, he decided, time for drastic action. He strolled casually (see also, stork-like lurching) past a lone man, and on the last minute lunged for his shirt, managing to grab a handful of dirty sleeve.

"ExcusemecanyoutellmewhereIam?" he asked quickly before the man could object.

"You're Here," said the man, trying to pull his sleeve out of Daniel's grip.

"But _where_ is here?"

"Damn newbies. Check yer map," said the man, tugging his sleeve free and hurrying away down the dusty street. A cactus popped up out of the ground and watched the fleeing man.

His map? What did that mean? He didn't have a map. Or did he? With nothing better to do, he turned to his guide, which was thankfully arranged in alphabetical order, and looked down for the word MAP. Under the bolded heading, he found a brief entry. "_It's at the front of this book._" So, feeling like a complete idiot, he turned to the front of the book and was greeted by the sight of an apparently hand-drawn map that had a definite printed quality about it. The map showed a large continent with a ragged coastline, and several bays which made perfect natural harbours. There were several offshore islands located near the coast, which all had suitably ominous sounding names, like 'The Isles of Dhoom', 'Prickly Death Island' and one simply labelled 'Here Be Dragons'. A handful of towns and cities littered the map, strewn about as if somebody had simply picked them out of a bag and dropped them from a height. Many were located along the coast. Some could be found bordering forests, mountains and sprinkled across plains. And amongst the towns were symbols indicating ruins of castles, keeps, other towns and cities, ancient engineering projects, elven domiciles and wizard towers. Why there were so many ruins, or more importantly, what had _made_ them into ruins, he didn't know, but he sincerely hoped he wouldn't have to visit any of them.

He scanned the map, and discovered where he was. In the north-western corner was the symbol for a town, and beside it were the words 'YOU ARE HERE'. So. Not Hereford after all, but quite literally, here. Not that it explained very much, but at least Here was better than Nowhere, which itself was a step up from one of the many Ominous Ruins he had seen on the map. It was just a shame he couldn't spend his whole Tour here, in Here. It seemed a nice little town, despite the paranoid townsfolk and the plague of small cacti.

For a while he wandered, lonely as a cloud, not wanting to really progress any further than he already had, but not wanting to stand still in case somebody from The Management noticed he wasn't having fun or being placed in mortal peril and decided to intervene. Nevertheless, he found himself drawn inexorably forward by some unseen force, and he wasn't the only one. Many of the first-time Tourers were making their way down the dusty main road, seemingly unaware that they were all travelling in the same direction, like a flock of birds who knew that south was _somewhere_ in the opposite direction of north, but weren't really sure, exactly, what south looked like, and were a little too embarrassed to ask the birds around them. Briefly, he wondered if somebody in the town had a large first-time Tourer magnet which they were using to draw all these people onwards... then he dismissed the idea as crazy and too modern. Maybe on the Sci-fi Tour, there would be magnets, but not Here, not on the Fantasy Tour, unless the magnets were simply a component in a much larger spell. Something for summoning demons, say.

At last he knew why he was being pulled forwards. His eyes lay upon a market in the middle of town, and it was quite a noisy affair. There were stalls, booths, tents and tables, all advertising different goods and services. Men and women cried their wares; "Freshly baked bread, milord, freshly baked bread, guaranteed weevil-free!", "Fresh vegetables for you, my good sir? You look like a man who needs fresh vegetables!", "Horses for sale! Fine horses for sale for fifty gold! Slightly less fine for twenty five! Nags for ten and not a copper less!", "Exotic pets! Your exotic pets sold here! Spiders for Animal Companions! Cats for Familiars! The fearsome battle-hedgehog, good for throwing, rolling or releasing on your foes!"

Daniel opened his pouch of money and looked inside. All he had was thirty gold, which immediately ruled out buying a fine horse, and probably a slightly less fine horse, unless he wanted to spend the rest of the Tour starving and without a change of clothes. Then again... it wasn't as if he even knew how to ride. That sort of skill was given to paladins and scouts, with wizards getting more esoteric abilities, such as being able to decipher runes (with enough training) and spot magic being performed (he hoped) and maybe even espouse lore (well, probably not). But at the very least, he knew he couldn't ride, so whether he got a fine horse or a nag didn't matter very much. At least a nag was most likely to be docile.

Just then, another stall caught his eye. It was large, possibly the largest one in the market, and the sign proclaimed it _'Honest Alwin's Magical and Adventuring Consortium'_, and a smaller sign beneath it said "SALE NOW ON" in large capital letters. Honest Alwin, it turned out when Daniel stepped forward, was a large, dark-skinned man wearing a turban, and doing brisk business with almost every Tourist in the town. Money and goods exchanged hands almost too quickly for Daniel to see, always with a jaunty "Thank you for shopping at Honest Alwin's Magical and Adventuring Consortium for your magical and adventuring needs, please come again!"

"Excuse me," said Daniel, shouting over the din, "are you Honest Alwin?"

"Me?" the large man chuckled. "Bless the twelve gods, no! I'm Unscrupulous Uddin. Honest Alwin is my cousin. He runs the consortium from the capital, Lalaleth. A great man, Alwin, though a little too honest at times. His tongue used to get him in trouble all the time, before somebody who took exception to it cut it out. Now he has to use a helper monkey to speak. Far better to be Unscrupulous and speaking, I say."

"Um... yes, I have to agree with you there. Listen, mister Uddin, I'm supposed to buy supplies..."

"Ah, a first-time Tourer, yes?" said the man with a wide smile that showed off teeth so white they might have been transplanted from Tom Cruise's mouth. "All the first-timers end up here, eventually. Let me guess... novice wizard? I have just the thing for you!"

Uddin bent down behind his table and began rooting around for something. Daniel took the opportunity to study the rest of the stall, and its contents. Had it been a stall on an Earth market, it would have been what his mother called 'bric-a-brac', Aunt Bertha called 'curios' and his father called 'absolute garbage'. The tables held a mishmash of rings, talismans, amulets, necklaces, brooches, shawls, shoes, cloaks, cooking pots, cutlery, blankets, bedrolls, bags, bows, crossbows, arrows, bolts, swords, axes, staves, morningstars, flails, daggers, throwing stars, halberds and even a stuffed alligator (or crocodile - he knew there was a way to tell the difference, but he had no idea what it was).

"Here you go, my fine young friend," said Udding, reappearing with a heavy bag which he dumped into Daniel's arms. "Standard adventuring kit number three."

"What do you get inside it?" he asked dubiously.

"Just have a look at the label, good sir!"

Daniel turned the heavy bag in his arms until he came to a small label underneath it, which he read aloud.

"'Standard adventuring kit number three, for wizards, mages and sorcerers of any level and of good or neutral alignment. Kit contains; One itchy woollen blanket (keep away from naked flames), one canteen (cold liquids only [not included]), one wizard's staff (20% yew, 80% pine, incl. fully automated lighting system), one woollen cloak (olive-green, with silver-plated neck clasp and hidden inner pockets), one set of saddlebags (good for horses of size 14hh - 17hh), one bag of rations (10 flatbread, 5 apples, 5 pears, 1 roast chicken, 25 instant stew mix), one bag of magical components (various herbs and spices, set of runes, deck of tarot cards, small crystal ball [quartz], mysterious magical sextant [travel-size], pestle and mortar), one ring of vomit resistance and one book of magical cantrips (pocket-size).' A ring of vomit resistance?"

"You'd be surprised how many people wish they had a ring of vomit resistance. Why do you think we put it in there to begin with?"

"About the cloak... can't I have a coat instead? Then I won't have to hold it closed all the time?"

"Sorry, my young friend, but only standard adventuring kit number eight gets the coat."

"And that is..?"

"Standard adventuring kit number eight, for wizards, mages and sorcerers of any level and of evil alignment.'

"Why do evil wizards get coats, but not good or neutral wizards? That seems a little unfair."

"Tell me about it. But I don't make the rules, I just follow them as unscrupulously as possible," said Uddin with a shrug. "If you don't like it, you'll have to take it up with The Management, but I doubt they'll change anything."

"I don't need to take it up with The Management. I'm an evil wizard, you see." Uddin subjected him to a sustained, sceptical look. "No, really. I sacrifice innocents to fuel my dark magic. I throw puppies down wells and strand kittens up trees. I regularly conjure demons and devils, and raise the undead whenever I get the chance. I steal sweets from babies too."

"Babies shouldn't have sweets. Rots their teeth, you know."

"Did I say steal sweets from babies? I meant... erm... first I give the sweets to the babies, to rot their teeth, then I take the sweets from them to make them cry!"

"That's one good thing and one bad thing, which cancel out to make you neutral. Pull your face all you like, but it's been proven that neutral characters have the lowest mortality rate and the highest life expectancy of any alignment. That's why there's so many neutral characters out there; the good and the evil spend far too much time trying to kill each other off, whilst the neutral characters sit back and wait for the danger to pass, before swooping in and claiming what's left. I myself am neutral; unscrupulously so!"

"And how much will this standard adventuring kit cost me?" he sighed, admitting defeat. Uddin's logic was sound enough, and he was willing to trade an uncomfortable cloak for a longer life expectancy.

"For you, my fine friend, fifteen gold."

"Fifteen gold? That only leaves me with ten!"

"Enough to buy a horse and saddle, yes? And you'll have enough left over from that to rent a room at the inn for the night. Caravans don't leave until morning, you know."

"Fantastic," he sighed. "I don't suppose you know where the caravans are going, do you?"

"They go everywhere, my friend. Some will cross the Tarry Sea by ship to trade with the Otherlanders, others will go east, braving the Lonely Forest to make deals with the elves, a few might even make it through the Dread Wastes, to where the barbarians and steppe-folk like, whilst some may head south and into the heart of the Capella Desert."

"Don't any deal in local trade? Say, to the coast and back?"

"Of course not!" he chuckled. "Only farmers deal in small-scale trade. Where would be the adventure in that?"

"I see," said Daniel miserably. He opened his Tour Guide to the front page and scanned the map. There were a _lot_ of dangerous looking places. "Say, are you one of the desert nomad folks from the Capella Desert?" he asked.

"Me? Of course not. I came here from the Arabian Nights Tour. The only thing you could sell there, though, was magic carpets or camels. I swore I wouldn't grow up to become a camel trader, so I took a job here on the Fantasy Tour at the first chance I got."

"Oh."

"I like you, novice wizard," said Uddin, leaning over the stall to clap him affably on the shoulder. "I tell you what, you go and speak to the horse trader, Intrepid Ishmael. He's a cousin of mine twice removed. Tell him I sent you, and he'll give you a good deal on a horse."

"Actually, I was thinking of just walking on my own two feet, to be honest."

"You can't do that!" said Uddin, aghast. "Why, your ridiculous pointy wizard boots would surely get in your way at every step, and they don't exactly have thick soles, do they? Besides, what will you eat when you run out of provisions? You might be forced to resort to cannibalism if there's no horse to butcher!"

"Right. I'll go and get myself a horse then."

The horse market was on the outskirts of the main market, probably because horses were rather prone to trying to fertilise the ground quite a lot, and so much fertiliser not only smelt bad, but also attracted hordes of frenzied flies. Daniel was in no hurry to go there, however. He dragged his feet, making the most of his master's degree in procrastination, running his eyes over items for sale on other stalls, moving on when their owners looked as if they were going to try to sell him something. He was sidling between two stalls when his Wizard Sense started tingling, and he felt something plucking at his pockets. His normal instinct to flee from trouble fled itself, and he reached out with his arm, grabbing a handful of hair, and pulling its owner out from underneath a cloth-covered table. What was in his hand was a mop of greasy dark hair sitting atop the head of some small, runny-nosed goblin-looking creature wearing clothes too large for it. It squirmed in a feeble attempt to get free, and when it finally realised it was stuck in his grip, it wiped a dirty sleeve across its runny nose and said in an over-the-top Hollywood version of a Cockney accent; "Gotta pick a pocket or two, guv'na!"

"Are you a goblin?" he asked uncertainly.

"Me? Course not! Oi'm a street urchin, oi am!"

Before Daniel could ask any more questions, a man wearing a suit appeared out of thin air. One moment he wasn't there, and the next he was. There was no flash of light, no bang of magic, no ripple in the air to herald his coming. It was as if he had always been there, and had been suddenly revealed. The man took one look at the street urchin, pulled what Daniel had come to think of as a Wiimote from his pocket, aimed it at the urchin and pulled the trigger. The boy raised his hands and closed his eyes, and Daniel let go just as a jet of purple light enveloped the urchin, surrounding him before making him disappear.

"As you were, citizen," said the man, pocketing his Wiimote. "Move along, nothing to see here."

"So... um... which Tour did _he_ come from?" Daniel asked. The man looked surprised.

"What makes you think he was from another Tour?"

"You... er... made that boy disappear just like the cactus."

"What cactus?"

"Don't you remember? I was standing by the registration tables when a cactus appeared. Then you showed up, zapped it with your... um... thing... and told me it had escaped from the Western Tour."

"Oh. That wasn't me. Must have been one of the others. The urchin was from the Dickensian Tour."

"Others? One of the other Managers?"

"Me? A Manager? Only in my dreams!" the man laughed. "No, no. We're not Managers. Better to simply think of us as... Auditors. We're employed by The Management to make sure everything is where it should be. Now that you mention it, number six _did_ mention rounding up a stray cactus earlier. It must have been him you met."

"Number six? Don't you have names?"

"Of course not. Only creatures with souls can have names, and everybody knows Auditors don't have souls. We sell ours to The Management when we take employment. It sort of... binds us to their service for a specific period of time. I've still got three years left on my contract."

"And what did you do before you became an Auditor?"

"I worked for Pricewaterhouse Coopers. It was pretty much the same job, only without inter-dimensional travel. Hmm... I wonder..." said the man, giving him a thoughtful look. Daniel was incredibly tempted to give it back. "You said this is the second time something from another Tour has ended up near you?"

"Er... yes?"

"I suspect you are Nerev'At."

"What's that?"

"Sometimes, a person comes along who can influence the very fabric of the Tour existence. It's said that the threads of every Tour are woven around somebody who is Nerev'At, and that other people, and even objects, are pulled towards them. People like you... blur... the boundaries between Tours, sometimes making them weak enough for objects or people to pass through. We haven't had a Nerev'At for... oh, at least four years."

"But if things can come from other Tours to me, doesn't mean that _I_ might accidentally slip into another Tour?"

"No, you're not contracted for it. But this could be very dangerous for you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, think about it. Sometimes, when a Nerev'At needs something badly enough, they find it. You might be drowning at sea when out of the Disney Tour pops a friendly mermaid to rescue you. Or perhaps you're facing a powerful enemy wizard and in danger or being defeated when a Jedi Knight from the Sci-fi Tour shows up just in the nick of time to save you. But it won't necessarily be something beneficial that appears. The friendly mermaid could just as easily be a hungry shark, or maybe even a dark pirate ship from the Pirate Tour. And just between you and me, one of the kids from the Sci-fi tour has managed to get his hands on a Sun Crusher. I really don't fancy explaining to The Management how something like _that_ ended up here."

"What's to be done about it?" he asked, panicking. He didn't know what a Sun Crusher was, but he could take a pretty good guess.

"Here, take this," said the Auditor. From his pocket he withdrew a small round stone inscribed with a rune, which he recognised as the Anglo-Saxon rune Nyd - Need. He didn't know how he knew it, but he knew. "That'll be your esoteric lore kicking in," said the man without being asked. "Took its time, if you ask me."

"What is this?" Daniel asked, taking the stone from the man's hand.

"A communicator. To use it, run your thumb over the rune, then speak into it. It will connect you to an Auditor who can come along and fix any problems. _Only_ use it if something from another Tour ends up here, though. Use it for complaining or general chit-chat and I'll take it from you and leave you on your own. Then it's your own fault if a piano from the Comedy Tour drops on your head, or if you're accosted by a red-eyed hound from the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Tour."

"I won't abuse it, I swear!" he said, hastily dropping the stone into his money-pouch before the Auditor could take it.

"Good, good." There was a beeping sound, and the man lifted up his sleeve to look at an elaborate wristwatch. It looked like a combination of mechanical gears and electrical doohickeys held together by magic energy. "It's waterproof, too," said the Auditor with a wink. "But I've got to go, there's a leak over on the Steampunk Tour. Remember what I said."

And then he was gone, as if by magic.

o ~ o ^ o ~ o

Opening her eyes with some difficulty, Ari was suddenly overwhelmed by an uncontrollable urge to cough. And cough she did. Though this had the unintended side-effect of stirring up the dust that inhabited the area around her face, making her breath in even more of the stuff and making her wheeze even more. Finally realising the vicious-circle created by the faithful laws of action-and-reaction, she pushed herself to her knees, narrowly avoiding scalping herself on the outstretched arm of a cactus.

_A cactus? _There were no cacti in England! Barring, of course those fake blow-up ones or one of the rare specimens lovingly cultivated at botanical gardens. But, as she surveyed her surroundings, it became painfully obvious that she was not in a botanical garden. Or any place that even _remotely_ resembled England, for that matter. In front of her stretched, as far as her eyes could see…a desert. Actually, wasteland was the more appropriate word because deserts housed flora and fauna, of which she could see none here.

Turning her gaze to the left, her eyes widened in surprise as she saw a long queue of people waiting with varying degrees of patience in front of a wobbly plastic table. Beyond that, a wooden sign-post bearing a single word: 'HERE' in big capital letters. Frowning in confusion, she pushed herself to her feet and dusted herself off as best she could, realising (with some distaste) that she was dressed in some ridiculous costume…

She groaned as her memory kicked in and reminded her how she had ended up in this… _place_…whatever and wherever this was. The table down there seemed to be manned by a serious-looking, no-nonsense chap, so for want of anything else do to, she made her way down the small rise.

Pushing her way to the front of the ridiculously long queue (leaving behind her a cloud of angry protests and a few choice references to her mother), she halted in front of the suited man with a balding head and planted her hands squarely on the table. She fixed him with her best 'I-am-not-happy-and-you-better-fix-my-problem-or-else' expression.

"Yes? May I help you?" the man asked, without looking up from his paperwork.

"Yes, you bloody well can help me!" she gritted through clenched teeth. "Where in God's name am I? And how the hell do I get out of here?"

"You are Here. Didn't you see the sign?" the man asked in a voice that was probably intended to make her feel like a stupid child. This only served to irritate Ari further.

"Of course I saw the bloody sign, but it's not very informative now, is it?"

The man sighed, put down his pen and gave her a level gaze. "'Here' is the Starting Point of all Fantasy Tours, located on the edge of Fantasyland. And you would know that had you read your Tour book. You would also know that the only way to leave Fantasyland is by successfully completing all three tours. Now, if there is nothing else, then I suggest that you step aside and stop obstructing the queue."

"No! I am not going anywhere until I speak to The Management! I have a _very_ long list of complaints to make and I _demand_ that you take me home now or I'll…"

"In that case, I am sorry but I cannot help you. I am simply a Tour Operator subcontracted by The Management to ensure all of your Tour needs are fulfilled. In any event, all complaints are to be submitted to The Management in writing."

"Then where can I _find_ The Management?" This man was seriously testing what little patience she had left.

"I'm afraid that's classified information."

"W-what?" spluttered Ari. "You can't be serious! As a consumer I have the right to submit a complaint and I fully inten-" She only vaguely realised that she was screaming, but she didn't care. Plus, being angry was far better than being scared, which was what she really was. She had no idea where she was, how to get home, and the staff were being worse than unhelpful. For all she knew, she had been kidnapped and these people intended to sell her to sex-traffickers or something equally horrendous…

"Security, we have a Code 501B," the man said into a walky-talky he had pulled from his pocket. "Requesting back-up." The next instant, two men muscular men, who looked like they had just stepped from The Matrix, appeared out of thin air and grabbed her. She struggled in vain. "Young lady, I suggest that you make your way _quietly_ and _without fuss_ to the town. There you can get all the necessary supplies and start your Tour." The man's voice was steady but it belied an ominous undertone. "Otherwise these fine gentlemen here will be forced to carry out their job descriptions."

Ari gulped and gave a small nod. She had no wish to find out what the details of these 'job descriptions' were. The beefy hands released her and with a small _pop_ the agents were gone. Taking a shaky breath to calm herself and to stop herself from shedding the tears that were gathering, she started walking towards the ramshackle town.


	3. In Which We Learn About Horse Trading

_The Management might even be spoofing __**you r**__ight now!_

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Adventures in Fantasyland

Presented by The Management

- Calanteli, LuckyShadows & Llandaryn -

o - o ^ o - o

_3. In Which We Learn About Horse Trading_

Ari stomped away with only barely suppressed fury. She had never been so cheated in her entire life! She was certain that Honest Alwin would disown his unscrupulous brother the moment he found out about the exorbitant prices he charged for worthless pieces of junk. She was also certain that the sign proclaiming 'SALE NOW ON' was just a cheap marketing trick designed to drawn unsuspecting passer-bys to happily disgorge the contents of their pursues, fully content in the knowledge that they were getting a one-time deal.

Though at least she now had basic supplies that would hopefully last her until she figured out how to get out of here. Which led her to her next stop - the horse market. Travel via horse seemed to be the only form of transportation (apart from walking) in this bizarre place, and there was no way she was walking! God knew where on earth she was, and a horse covered ground a lot faster than a human, and tired less easily.

She had gone through an obsession-with-horses phase, like many young teenage girls and had enjoyed many a sunny summer afternoon riding at the stables near her grandparents' idyllic country cottage. In fact, she had gone so far as volunteering to clean the stables in order to earn a bit of pocket money, and had somewhat gotten used to motley smell of dung, horse, hay and dust. But even such experiences could not have prepared her for the sheer _stench_ that permeated the air around the horse market. Nor the disturbing number of flies that took up all the available airspace in the surrounding area and buzzed annoyingly at anyone who trespassed in their intended trajectory.

She must have crossed some invisible boundary because in the next moment three eager turbaned heads invaded her private sphere and began babbling almost incoherently at the same time in faux-Arabic accents.

"A pretty horse for a pretty lady?" ask one, leering at her suggestively and waggling his enormous eyebrows. "Shamal has best breeding stock in entire…"

"Oh, don't flatter yourself, Shamal!" cried another, elbowing him away. "None of your horses could make it a mile without collapsing from exhaustion. _My_ horses, on the other hand…"

"Don't believe a word they say," whispered a third, sliding up conspiratorially to her side. "If you want a good horse, for a good price, you should look no further than Jerran's corral."

Ari groaned inwardly. Why was nothing ever simple in this accursed place? All she wanted was a horse so she could get on her way. She didn't want to deal with greedy merchants who were only out to hoodwink her. And who all seemed to be auditioning for the role of the short little Arabian vendor from _Aladdin_.

"All right, stop!" she cried as the one called Jerran was attempting to her steer her towards his stall while Shamal and the other merchant were about to come to blows. They all paused comically in mid-act and stared at her in surprise. "I have 15 gold on me after being royally ripped-off by that Unscrupulous Uddin guy so I am in a foul mood and have no time for idle bargaining and con acts. I am planning on spending 5 gold coins in a nice hot meal, washed down with a cold beer so I can forget about this whole mess. Now. Which of you will sell me a horse for 10 gold pieces?" She jingled her purse for added effect.

There was a short silence as the three men absorbed her words. The next instant, they erupted into a frenzy of gesticulating and more incoherent babbling in exact reminisce of the very situation she had wanted to avoid.

"Shamal give you _beautiful_ horse for _only_ 9 gold pieces and will throw in a saddle and bridle for an extra 3 gold."

"Bah! Horse from me for 10 gold, _including_ tack, _and_ one that has been recently shod!"

"I will sell you my _finest_ horse for 9 gold including equipment, shoes _and_ a warranty certificate!"

Realising that this was utterly useless, Ari decided to take matters into her own hands. Spotting a decent-looking black horse cropping attentively at his hay, she skirted the crazy merchants (who were so absorbed in debasing each others' mothers that they did not even notice her leaving) and moved towards the animal. Sensing her presence, the horse lifted his head and twitched his ears with curiosity. Scratching his nose, she looked him over - he was quite dusty, a little thin, and his coat could _definitely _use a brush. But a horse was a horse, and she had wasted enough time already. Spying a rack lined with saddles, bridles and blankets, she grabbed one of each and quickly saddled the horse, surprised that she still remembered how it was done.

She was half-tempted to just walk away without paying (the merchants still were not paying her any heed), but her moral scruples prevented her from doing so. Sighing with resignation, she marched up to the three men and counted out 12 gold coins. At the sound of coins clinking, they paused in mid-argument and glared at her suspiciously. "I have taken the liberty of selecting my own horse, saddling it and I now intend to pay for it against my better judgement. Now the three of you can either fight over this money or you can split it evenly between you. I really don't care either way." She grabbed the hand of the nearest one, slapped the coins in them and walked away, horse in tow.

"Hey! You can't do that!" shouted Jerran, running after her, robes billowing out behind him

"I just did."

"But…but… it's against the rules!"

"Oh, really? The mysterious 'Management' has decreed that all tourists must get swindled after suffering interminable and pointless arguments with immature vendors?"

"Something, like that, yes," confirmed the second, as yet still-unnamed man. "After all, us honest merchants do need to make a living. The Management doesn't pay very well, you know." He eyed her seriously depleted coin purse with longing in his eyes, before catching himself and forcing himself to look away.

"But this much better than Arabian Nights Tour!" proclaimed Shamal, jabbing a crusty finger in the air. The other two nodded sagely in agreement. "Shamal could not spend two minutes peeling his dates without tourists posing as street-rats stealing his wares."

"That damnable Aladdin…" muttered Number 2 vengefully. "The role models they give kids these days. In my day…!"

"Plus, it gives you skill points," added Jerran, neatly sidestepping the tangential discussion that was brewing between the other two.

"Skill points?" asked Ari incredulously.

"Why, yes! Successful interactions with merchants raise your Bargaining skills and maybe even add to your Lore if you are able to identify unknown objects."

"What is this then? A _computer game_?"

"Oh, no it's quite real," Jerran assured her.

"At least that's what The Matrix wants you to believe…" muttered Ari under her breath.

"Tell you what," said Number 2, dropping his arm around her shoulders, apparently through with blaming Disney for his life's woes. "Since you ended up swindling us (that horse, along with the equipment is worth _at least_ 20 gold)…"

"Shamal would have given it to you for 15!"

"Oh, shut up!" snapped his companion before continuing. Ari was beginning to suspect that the two were either brothers or they had known each other for _way_ too long. "As I was saying, since you ended up swindling us and could have probably walked away without paying, but decided to pay more than you promised, we'll call it a successful transaction and celebrate the only way there is."

"And what way is that?"

"Getting piss drunk, of course!"

"Sounds good to me!" agreed Ari, smiling for the first time that day as the three merchants led the way to the ramshackle inn.

o ~ o ^ o ~ o

Daniel looked around at the common room, and as quietly as possible made his way to the bar. The room was full of noisy people. He hated noise, and he wasn't really all that big on people, either. At least four minstrels were vying for the crowd's attention; one was plucking on a lute and warbling quietly. The man next to him was playing a song on a flute that raced up and down the scales. Beside him, another man was frantically playing what looked like a guitar but probably wasn't, and screaming out a song in a foreign language. The last was banging on a tambourine and stamping his foot on the ground as he chanted some lurid ditty. He managed to sneak around them all and haul himself onto one of the impossibly high bar stools. A squat, rotund man was standing behind the bar, cleaning a dirty glass with an even dirtier rag.

"What can I get ya?" he asked Daniel.

"I'd like... um... a glass of port, please."

"Port? Never heard of it."

"Then how about a glass of white wine?"

"Haven't had wine here in years. Used to get it off the Elves, but they stopped coming. Don't know why."

"A stout glass of brandy?"

"Dwarves brought that, one. They stopped coming too. Must be some sort of trouble, to keep the Dwarves away."

"Then what are my choices?" Daniel sighed.

"Ale or mead. Or maybe grog, but I'll have to check the use-by date. Nobody ever wants grog."

"Fine, just give me a glass of ale, then."

"I don't do glasses. It's a tankard or nothing."

"Then I'd like a tankard of ale, please."

"You gots some ID?"

"What? Are you kidding me? I'm eighteen!"

"So you say. But where's your proof?"

"I'm a novice wizard!"

"That may be so, but I still need some ID."

"Fine," Daniel replied. He knew his was sulking, but he was beyong caring. He turned himself on his bar stool and opened one of his many pouches (he'd needed many, for all of his various magical things) and took out a card from his tarot deck. It was The Hierophant. "You're my ID!" he whispered to the card. "Let the barman see what he wants to see!" The little man in the card winked at him. "Here you go," Daniel said loudly for the benefit of the man behind the bar. He handed the card over.

"Hmm. This seems to be in order," said the barman, handing the card back. Go and get yourself a seat at a table and I'll get the serving wench to bring your drink."

"Can't I just take it with me now?" Daniel asked, pocketing the card. "I mean, I'm already here."

"By the fifteen gods, do you have any idea what would happen if my patrons started carrying their own drinks? All of my girls would be out of a job, that's what! This isn't a self-service bar, you know."

"Right. Um, sorry. Well, could I at least have something to eat as well, then?"

"What would you like?"

"I don't know. What do you have?"

"Chicken, pheasant or duck."

"And what are they _really?_"

"Chicken," said the man with a shrug. "But most people can't tell the difference."

"In that case, I think I'd like duck."

"I'll be right with ya," said the man with a grin. Dodging the minstrels who were playing even more lively than they had been before, and the serving girls who were running hither and thither with drinks and orders, Daniel made his way across the common room floor and finally found a free table. It was a small, rickety old thing with a pathetic lone stool to keep it company. And he quickly realised why it was free; it was right beside the door, and every time it opened it admitted whirls of warm air and dust which slowly began to cover his robes.

As he waited on the rickety old stool for his drink to be brought to him, he tried desperately to avoid eye contact with anybody else in the room. It wasn't hard. Nobody seemed to _want_ to look at him, which pleased him immensely. In one corner, a bunch of Tourists were loudly bragging about who was going to kill the most orcs on their caravan journey. In another corner, another Tourist dressed as a ranger was drinking heavily with the three horse traders who'd tried to con him earlier in the day into buying a mule instead of a horse - Intrepid Ishmael was nothing like Unscrupulous Uddin, and probably didn't have that much in common with Honest Alwin either. In another corner, a group of surly caravan guards were drinking their weight in ale and mead, and Daniel felt some small measure of kinship for them. He'd read his Tour guide from front to back, up in his room, and he knew what was coming next for the guards. And, judging by the way they were drinking, they knew it too.

In yet another corner (and Daniel was beginning to wonder just how many corners one room could have) lounged a group of novice and apprentice wizards of the Tourist variety. A gaggle of young, female Tourists gathered around them, gasping appreciatively whenever one of the wizards-to-be conjured fire or light from the end of his staff. Daniel was not impressed in the slightest. He'd already figured out several hours ago, in the privacy of his room upstairs, that by pressing the top-most button on his staff, which was cunningly disguised to look like a knot in the wood, he could make mage-light appear from the end of his staff as if by will. Pressing the knot beneath it made sparks of mage-fire issue forth from the staff instead of light, and he supposed this would be handy for starting fires if he ever lost his tinderbox. Which, knowing his luck, was probably going to be tomorrow afternoon.

A rather harassed looking serving girl arrived with his tankard of warm, flat ale, mumbled something about his meal being late, and scurried away before he could engage her in conversation or inundate her with requests for local information. Still desperate to avoid eye-contact with any potential enemies, he lowered his gaze to his ale, and saw his own yellow, watery reflection staring back at him. He looked, he realised, rather ugly. His nose was a little too long for his face. His mother had always said he'd grow into it, but he very much doubted that would happen. Shoes were something you grew into, as were coats. Sometimes trousers could be grown into, and the occasional shirt, too. But noses were noses, and no amount of growing would make his fit any better. Besides, he was eighteen, he was fairly certain he'd done all the growing he was ever going to do.

His nose wasn't the only thing going against him. Above it sat a mop of curly hair, so dark brown it was almost black. It was the sort of curly hair that, when the weather turned humid, curled up and went frizzy, making him look like he had a small poodle on his head. Growing up, he would have given anything for flowing locks that he could tie back into a ponytail, or a short back and sides cut that would at least have made him look normal, if not respectable. Even a shaved head would have been better than his unruly mop. And as he'd grown up, so had his hair, and it seemed to resent being forced into anything with a semblance of style. But the true death knell to his appearance was his watery-grey eyes. His vision was so bad that unless he was wearing his glasses he could barely see three feet in front of him. When he was young, his mother had made him wear black thick-rimmed glasses which had earned him no end of teasing at school. As soon as he had been old enough to know what an opinion was and express one of his own, he'd insisted on getting a more respectable pair of spectacles. The wire-framed ones he currently possessed were small and discreet. They suited his face, probably because the first thing anybody saw when they looked at him was his nose.

Topped off with his purple hat, he didn't make an impressive sight, which he felt quite good about. He felt a little sorry for the rugged, dashing looking Tourists dotted around the room, because they were the ones who would have Interesting Things happen to them. Good looking men with glossy hair, piercing eyes and gruff voices (and Daniel had always thought that these descriptions made the poor souls sound more like dogs than men) were the staple of every fantasy book or game. Women swooned for them, political enemies plotted to kill them, and monsters fell by the dozen before them. But he desperately wanted to avoid women, enemies and monsters, because in his vast experience, all of these things were terribly dangerous. There was, really, only one thing he could do. He must avoid using magic at _any_ cost. Enough magical talent could make up for a lack of good looks. Magic tended to draw enemies like bees to flowers, and his own situation, being Nerev'At, probably wouldn't make things any easier for him.

Not doing magic shouldn't be _too_ hard, he thought as he took a sip of warm, flat ale. He'd been here in Here for half a day already, and he'd only done one bit of magic, when he'd charmed the card into thinking it was his ID. But a simple little charm spell didn't really count. Not really. Anything bigger, though... now that _would_ be real magic, and he'd stay very clear of it. Which shouldn't be too hard, really. Whilst going through his standard adventuring kit in his room earlier, he'd discovered that his pocket-size book of magical cantrips had been accidentally replaced by an old-looking tome entitled _Booke of Spells_. He'd had a brief look inside, realised that these spells were much more advanced than he was, and closed it again. In the morning, he'd take it back to Unscrupulous Uddin and get replacement cantrip book. Very little could go wrong with cantrips - not that he intended to use any! - but if he for some reason tried a more advanced spell, it could backfire horribly.

He thought back to his encounter with the caravan organiser. The man had looked like those outside Here, at the registration table, only he wasn't wearing a suit. He was dressed as everybody else in Here was dressed, fine but somewhat dusty clothes that didn't draw attention to him in any way. But Daniel had seen through it; this man was one of The Management, or at least one of the Tour Operators Subcontracted By The Management.

_"Excuse me," _Daniel had said. _"I'm here to sign up to a caravan." _

_ "Ah, yes," _the man had replied. _"I have one here, bound for..."_

_ "It doesn't matter where it's bound for. Anywhere I go will be fraught with intrigue and danger and monsters. Isn't that right?"_

_ "Well... yes. That's why it needs your protection, of course. If there wasn't the chance of intrigue, danger and monsters, we wouldn't need brave folks like you as escorts, would we?"_

_ "Look, just put me on a Tour with no other Tourists,"_ he'd said firmly.

_ "Are you sure? I thought you Tourists liked sticking together. I've got one here with Angry Hamish, a fine Barbarian Tourist."_

_ "No."_

_ "What about travelling with Scotty O'Scot Scot McScott's caravan? He's not only a fighter, but also a Missing Heir. I think he could use a good wizard at his back."_

_ "I'm not a good wizard, I'm a neutral wizard novice, and I'm not very good at wizarding. Just put me on a Tour where I won't have to put up with these excitable, suicidal lunatics. I don't care where it goes, though if you can make it to somewhere boring, all the better."_

_ "Alright," _the man had said after much huffing and sighing. _"We've got one left with no other Tourists on it. You'll be paid five gold per week, how does that sound?"_

_ "I don't care about the money, I just want to stay alive."_

_ "What an unusual attitude! Well, that's your caravan, over there. The one with the white-turtle-on-black-background banner at its head."_

He'd wandered over to the caravan to inspect it. There, he'd consulted his Tour guide book and discovered he'd be travelling with a tall, thin, wiry, silent and neurotic Female Mercenary (who would probably be taken hostage by bandits when they attacked the caravan), a Serious Soldier (Daniel was informed by the book that he would miss this man when he was killed), a Teenage Boy (who would probably turn out to be the Missing Heir of some nation or other, and was probably the person the Serious Soldier was guarding), and an Unpleasant Stranger (who, judging by his colour-coding - black clothes, black hair, dark eyes - was probably a spy for the bandits and would betray the caravan to his fellows at the first chance he got). Everybody else assigned to the caravan were extras; guards and mercenaries barely even worth mentioning. But then, every caravan had this same set-up, though one had a dwarf on it, and another had a pair of gnomes or halflings (it was too early for him to tell which).

Yes, he thought, as he took another sip of his ale and tried to appear small and inoffensive. The only way to survive this Tour was to abstain from magic for as long as possible, and leave to look for the exit at the first available chance. And if he _did_, survive, he might just buy a nice Pirate Tour for Aunt Bertha when he got hom. He ignored the little voice in his head that told him Aunt Bertha would probably end up as the leader of any pirates she encountered within a week.


	4. Of Caravans and Hangovers

_Never leave home without at least one clean pair of socks. Unless you're a halfling, in which case, socks are your racial enemy, and you get a +2 attack bonus when fighting them._

_

* * *

_

Adventures in Fantasyland

Presented by The Management

- Calanteli, LuckyShadows & Llandaryn -

o - o ^ o - o

_4. Of Caravans and Hangovers_

Daniel closed his eyes as the world below him rocked alarmingly and his stomach heaved in response. He'd only been on the horse for half an hour, and he'd already managed to fall off three times - two of them before the caravan had even left Here. The single saving grace to this whole episode was that his horse was a knobbly-kneed nag that didn't seem capable of independent thought. And it was so old and bony that even if it had _wanted_ to run away, it probably couldn't have. It seemed quite content to follow the rest of the caravan, and he wondered if the horse had done this Tour before.

In comparison, the horse of the Silent Soldier was a tall, deep-chested, arch-necked, high-stepping, snow-white monster which every time it looked at Daniel, gave him the impression that it wanted to eat him bit by bit, chew him up and spit him out all over the ground. It was constantly prancing and snorting impatiently, and everybody on the Tour wisely gave it a wide berth.

The sun was currently sitting just above the horizon in a clear sky, and the day promise to be warm and bright. These were less than ideal conditions for someone of Daniel's calibre and complexion. The last time he'd gone out in the sun for more than a few hours, he'd ended up with the most horrific sunburn. And that had been in a British winter. Since then, he'd coped by only having sun in small doses, an hour at a time in winter, fifteen minutes in summer. He doubted that sunscreen existed here in Fantasyland, but at least his robes were airy and comfortable, and the wide-brimmed wizard hat would keep the sun from his face.

Something thin and pointy dug into his thigh, and he carefully let go of the reins with one hands - his knuckles were white from gripping them - and reached into his pocket to draw out his ID card. So far, he hadn't been able to convince the card to go back to being the Hierophant. He'd tried begging, threatening, and asking nicely, but the words _Daniel The Strange, Age 18, Place of Residence: Here,_ hadn't changed in the slightest. He supposed he couldn't really blame the card. It couldn't be nice, being the Hierophant, having to mingle with the royal Emperor and the haughty High Priestess all the time.

He put the card in his pocket, and as he did so, he heard a small rustling noise in the undergrowth to his left. He dared to take his eyes from the dusty road, and peered into the hedgerow for a moment. A small cactus jumped out of a clump of gorse and waved one prickly arm at him.

"You aren't supposed to be here!" he hissed. "Go away, or I'll get an Auditor down here, and you won't like that one bit!"

The rest of the guards and mercenaries pointedly _didn't_ watch him speaking to vegetation. It was common knowledge that the best mages were eccentric, and the worst were criminally insane. It was pretty much expected of them, and until he was required to perform actual magic, he knew everybody would just leave him alone. Of course, once he failed to produce any magic when it was expected of him, he'd be royally screwed, but he'd just have to cross that bridge later.

When he looked up again, the sun was directly overhead. The caravan driver began to pull his team over to the side of the road, and the guards and mercenaries started to dismount. Everybody began taking out some of their rations - stale bread, cheese, and a small wrinkly apple - and they sat down on the roadside to eat lunch.

"Um, excuse me," said Daniel, stopping his horse beside the caravan. "How can it be lunch time already? We've only just set off from Here."

"First time on the Tour, eh?" said the driver jovially.

"On _this_ Tour, yes."

"Well, that's just the way it works. Caravan-lag, you see. We've been on the road for hours already. Here's more than ten miles behind us."

"Yes, but, you see, I have a very astute sense of time," he persisted. "And I assure you, we can't have been travelling for more than forty-five minutes."

"You don't have to believe _me_," said the driver, unphased by logic. "Just look at the sun. Everyone knows it takes hours for the sun to get from the horizon to overhead. Ergo, we've been on the road for hours."

"Yes, but-"

"I expect the heat's been getting to you." The large man patted him on the shoulder, no doubt in what was supposed to be a comforting gesture. "You just take it easy until you get used to the caravan-lag. Once you've adapted to life on the road, you'll feel every minute of it."

"I don't want to get used to it," he sulked.

"That's the spirit. Now, go and get yourself something to eat. We'll be leaving soon, and you don't want to be left behind, do you?"

There was nothing else to do. He dismounted (_see also: falling from horse_) and led his steed towards an unclaimed patch of road-side. He didn't bother tying the horse to a tree, as the rest of the guards had. For one, he didn't know how to make the official horse-knot, and for two, he knew his horse didn't have an ounce of spirit in it, and was as likely to run off as it was to sprout wings and fly.

From his backpack he took out some of the stale bread and cheese that had been provided to him at the caravan sign-up, and spent a good five minutes chewing his first mouthful. He knew that once it was gone, he'd have to survive off stew for the rest of the Tour, and it wasn't something he was looking forward to. Aunt Bertha was a great fan of stew, as well as broth, porridge, dumplings and black pudding. Sometimes she'd been known to eat them all in a single sitting (she was what his father politely termed 'a large lady', having a build somewhere between that of a rugby union player and a hippopotamus). He'd once spent a week with Aunt Bertha, in her cottage down in Dorset, and she'd made him eat stew for dinner every single night. Now he avoided the stuff like the plague.

As he ate, he heard more rustling sounds behind him, and a few moments later a small cactus approached him warily, stopping by his knee. Then, a second one appeared by his other knee, and he was left with the strong impression that they were watching him quite intently.

"Look," he whispered, loud enough for the cacti to hear but quiet enough that nobody else could. "I don't know what you want from me. Why can't you go back to your own Tour? It's got to be nicer there than it is here. At least you don't have to deal with magic and dragons and long-lost heirs. I imagine it's quite nice over there, with all the expansive deserts and whatnot." The cacti were still. "I'm sorry if I brought you here, I really am. I don't want to be Nerev'At. I didn't ask for this, and it's not like it's even helping me."

"Wizard Strange," called the caravan driver. "We'll be leaving momentarily. You might want to get back in the saddle."

Daniel sighed. Watching him get on the horse had already become something of an entertainment for the rest of the caravan. They all stood around snickering and grinning whilst he hopped beside the horse, one foot wedged in his stirrup, and not one of them offered to help. Especially not the dark, greasy-haired mercenary Daniel was _sure_ was a spy for enemy bandits.

_Well_, he thought, as he hauled himself into the saddle on his third attempt. It seemed his skill was improving. _It could be worse. At least I'm not being chased by Germans this time._

o - o - o - o - o

A rough hand shook her awake. "Up ye get, lass," came the accompanying command from a gruff voice. Ari slowly opened her eyes and was greeted by an artfully stacked pyramid of empty tankards. The sight of this image elicited a mournful groan from her parched lips as it brought into sharp focus the fact that she had drunk _way too much_ last night. And had spent the last of her money. Which, in turn, meant that she would not be able to buy a glass of juice or water… or anything else that was _not_ alcohol… and rinse out her mouth and clear her groggy mind.

Raising her head with some effort from the greasy tabletop, she clutched at her temples as the room began to spin. She squinched her eyes shut and willed the nausea to pass. Taking deep breaths, she fought the urge to dispose of the results of last night's copious consumption on the floor next to her. After many minutes of struggle, the queasiness mercifully departed. She hated to imagine the scene that would have ensued had she lost the battle…

Opening her eyes again, she saw the innkeeper (who, she learnt last night, also doubled as the barkeep, receptionist, maître d' and head-waiter) give her a knowing, if slightly exasperated look, as he cleared away the tankards.

"I see drunks in here every day o' the week. Don't expect me to feel any sympathy for ye," he informed her curtly and began wiping the table in a manner that somehow managed to emphasise his point.

"Water," Ari croaked out in response.

The barkeep sighed with barely suppressed frustration. "This here be a _bar_. We ain't got no water. The closest thing we have to it is _piss_-water, which you seemed quite happy to drink last night. If you want something as puritan as water, go to the well or the horse trough."

"Please…"

There must have been something in her eyes (despite the fact that they were puffy and red and wholly unattractive at the moment) that made the barkeep sigh again, though this time in defeat, and waddle over to the bar. He rummaged around for a couple of seconds, muttering choice swear-words under his breath, and reappeared a minute later with a tankard of water.

"Thank you," she mouthed and took a huge gulp, ignoring the fact that it tasted like it had been collected from the bilge of a ship and probably contained any number of water-borne diseases. She would deal with that later. For right now, her top concern was getting up from this stool in one piece and making it outside so that she could…

She mis-swallowed a huge gulp as the cosmic importance of a lone thought hit her like a sledgehammer. After several painful minutes of wheezing and spluttering, during which the barkeep looked on with only a mild hint of concern, she finally managed to gasp, "The caravan!"

"Left hours ago," came the informative reply that she was dreading. "'Tis nearly noon, ye know. Caravans leave at the crack of dawn."

"WHAT?" The scattering of early patrons collectively turned their heads towards her, to see what the commotion was about. A few eager hopefuls even swivelled their chairs around to get a good view for what was about to happen - be it screaming-match or bar-fight. Even the lone fiddler, who, up until now, had been playing a slow, melancholic air, switched to a lively jig in preparation for the upcoming scene. But he and the others were sorely disappointed when they got no entertainment. Instead, they had to content themselves with watching Ari grab her pack and rush out the door at full tilt, her hangover forgotten.

"Hey! Ye better be payin' me for that water! 'Tis a rare commodity that…!" the barkeep called, but Ari zoomed past him without any misgivings. She had no time and no money. Plus, wasn't water supposed to be free in bars?

Bursting out the door, she was momentarily blinded by the fierce midday sun and slapped in the face by a hearty gust of the sand-laden wind. Coughing, she made her way towards her horse, which, thankfully, was still tethered exactly where she had left him. Vaulting into the saddle, she galloped towards the caravan. At least, she tried to. She had not ridden in years and it took her a couple of false starts and some angry snorting from the poor animal before they even got moving forward, let alone galloping. They always made it seem so easy in the books and the movies, Ari thought ruefully as she tried to settle herself into the rhythm of the horse. Hero jumps from the balcony into the saddle of his faithful steed and immediately sets off at a thundering canter to save the world. No questions asked. Of course, such was the stuff of fiction. She, unfortunately, was living in reality.

Reaching the caravan post, she reigned in her horse, which, fortunately, got the point on the first try and slowed down, but did not execute the dramatic gallop-halt sequence she was hoping for. In fact, by the time the horse had finally transitioned from canter to stop via the intermediary trot and walk, they had managed to overshoot her intended stop-point by several yards. Dismounting, and feeling like a complete git, she led her horse back to the patiently waiting man who was dressed in dusty robes and wore a bemused expression.

"Don't worry," he told her cheerfully. "After a couple of weeks in that saddle, you'll be doing all sorts of enviable horsey tricks! If you're lucky, you might even end up being dragged along _next_ to your horse when your foot gets caught in the stirrup while falling off."

"You make it sound like that _always_ happens. Surely that's a very rare occurrence that only befalls those who do not know how to ride properly." She remembered vividly how the paramount importance of the correct foot-in-stirrup arrangement had been repeatedly impressed on her during her riding lessons.

"Oh, no," chuckled the slightly portly man. "In Fantasyland, you _always_ get dragged behind your horse. There would be no fun without that, would there?"

"Right…" Ari failed to see the humour or the fun in the situation. She decided to press on to the matter at hand. "I need a place on a caravan out of here. Leaving _now_, preferably. Or in the next couple of minutes."

"Sorry, no can do, lassy. Protocol strictly states that all caravans _must_ depart _exactly_ at sunrise. No exceptions, allowances or deviations. I could book you a spot for tomorrow's caravan bound for…"

"I don't think you understand. I. Need. To. Leave. _Now_."

"Ah, the impatient first-timer," smiled the man in apparent understanding. "So eager to be off to save the world that you have no time for all the regulatory red-tape. But, the rules are the rules, and where would we be without them? In _anarchy_, that's where! We would be reduced to uncivilised savages who fought to survive in a lawless land without the necessary safety-nets of order, administration and bureaucracy with which to maintain our sanity! You wouldn't want that now, would you?" The man's voice had grown frightfully ominous and his eyes had taken on a frenzied sheen. Ari took an involuntary step back, ready to run for her life in case the man decided to take out his pent-up frustrations on her. But, in the next second, he reverted back to his former, cheery self. A wide smile plastered itself to his lips as he said, "Now. Should I book you a place on the caravan leaving tomorrow at first light?"

"Erm… No, thank you…" She had no desire to travel on a caravan organised by a crazy man obsessed with officialdom, and one who probably stabbed unsuspecting anarchists to death in their sleep. "I… I think I will make my own way."

"Don't be ridiculous! It's a jungle out there! No one survives in the Wilds alone. With a caravan, at least, the orcs or bandits (myself, I prefer the bandits - much more civilised!) will only slaughter your travelling companions while you will either be Left For Dead or Sold Into Slavery. In this way your survival is _guaranteed_ by The Management so that… Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

Ari did not dignify the man with an answer as she pulled herself into the saddle and beat a hasty trot out of the town. A couple of dozen yards down the road, she came to a cross-roads decorated by a crudely-made and not very instructive signpost. It bore arrows indicating three possible directions. One, entitled 'Here', pointed back to where she had just come from. The second, directed her to the left-fork and towards 'There'. The third proclaimed that by following the right-fork, she would end up 'Everywhere'. She had definitely had enough of 'Here' so she only really had two options. 'There' seemed to be the safest option - it had a slightly more tangible and definitive ring about it than the more ambiguous and possibility-laden 'Everywhere'.

Having made her decision, she turned her mount onto the left-fork and hoped for the best.


End file.
